The Chi-Lites

(For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People

The Chi-Lites are an R&B/soul vocal quartet from Chicago, Illinois.

In 1971, following in the footsteps of Sly & the Family Stone and Curtis Mayfield, the Chi-Lites released their most political album to date: "(For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People." Eugene Record wrote most of the songs featured on the album. Of the title track, which is featured here, Record said the following: "When something is wrong it's wrong. And if you haven't seen anything to make it right you have to continue with your feelings. We travel about a lot and there's a lot of things we see that don't look good. This is about the only way we can try and set them right; by bringing people's attention to them."

Lyrics

For God's sake, you got to give more power to the people
There's some people up there hoggin' everything
Tellin' lies, givin' alibis about the people's money and things
And if they gonna throw it away, might as well give some to me
Yeah they seen and heard it, but never had misery
There are some people who are starvin' to death
Never knew but only hate us [?], and they never had happiness
Oh, oh, oh, if you don't have enough to eat,
how can you think of love
You don't have the time to care
so it's crime you're guilty of, oh yeah
For God's sake, you got to give more power to the people
For God's sake, why don't you give more power to the people
Cut this jive and see who's got the power to kill the most
When they run out of power, the world's gonna be a ghost
They know we're not satisfied, so we begin to holler
Makin' us a promise and throwin' a few more dollars
There's no price for happiness, there's no price for love
Up goes the price of livin', and you're right back where you was
So whatever you got, just be glad you got it
Now we're gonna get on up and get some more of it